Palestinian factions on Saturday reiterated their absolute rejection of the continued sanctions imposed by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah on the Gaza Strip.
During a discussion panel held by the Palestine Center for Studies and Research titled “The internal impasse: From division to empowerment: causes and solutions” Palestinian leaders stressed the need to adopt the principle of national partnership for the Palestinian reconciliation.
Partnership is the solution
PFLP leader Jamil Mezher said “If we adopt the national partnership in reconciliation and arrangements things will be easier but if there is a kind of exclusion the impasse will continue until the end of the world and I am talking about the empowerment of the government.”
He added “The government must assume its duties and responsibilities and not just talk about empowerment in order to protect reconciliation from all attempts that aim to sabotage it.”
He pointed out that the current stage needs the most popular national alignment to make a real serious and effective pressure against the party that is disabling the reconciliation because failure to implement the reconciliation will have negative and difficult repercussions.”
Empowerment means exclusion
Khaled Al-Batesh a leader in the Islamic Jihad movement said that the term empowerment is being misused to continue imposing sanctions on the Gaza Strip. “We must talk about national partnership and empowerment in the West Bank to resist and confront the (Israeli) enemy.”
Al-Batesh said during his speech “We understood from the term empowerment that it means exclusion and replacement and we should have talked about partnership instead. We must work to implement the 2011 agreement for a Palestinian partnership that brings together the Palestinian people.”
On the continuation of the sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip Al-Batesh said: “It is a moral and national defect and it is shameful to ask to provide electricity to the Gaza Strip. When we do we get accused of disabling reconciliation.” He called for lifting the sanctions on the Gaza Strip as soon as possible. What is happening is a shame to say the least he said.
The Islamic Jihad leader sent a message to the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas saying: “I hope Abbas and I ask him personally will save the reconciliation which is in a real danger and the situation we live is that of the pre-2006 and not the post-2006.”
He added “Your Excellency regardless of your differences with Hamas give your instructions to end this suffering because that may revive hope and the situation is dangerous and difficult.”
“I hope that we will have a positive outcome following the Fatah-Hamas meeting in Cairo; because if that does not happen we will be facing a difficult situation.”
On the government’s recent decision to bring back the PA’s employees in Gaza to work Al-Batesh said: “The government was supposed not to throw this bomb a few days before the new joint administrative and legal committee to follow up on the employees file was supposed to be held and to settle down their issue based on law and order rather than politics.”
